Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Proposed New Skill Groups Discussion

I think that the coolest part of the polymorph skill would be its disabling capabilities. for instance, in d:os you could stun with aerothurge and knock people down with man at arms but what if with polymorph you could turn someones hands into flippers causing them to drop their weapons. you could even just straight up turn a giant demon into a chicken for easy killing.

Wouldn't it be a bit OP?
Especially if the game seems to be heading towards multiplayer.

It wouldn't be OP if the demon was turned into a really BIG chicken.

On the Devline chat, Swen answered the question (which hopefully he understood), and said that the passive abilities for certain proposed skill groups would come from Talents.

• Bard - "Weave Lies into your Tales"
  "Influence NPC" Those seem rather vague, kinda like they give you new dialogue options.
• Summoning Master "Summon more than one extra Ally" Does that apply to any of the possible summons, or only to specific ones in the summoning master tree?
• Juggernaut "Get stronger as your health drops" "Dual-wield Axes"
• Alchemist "Improved benefits from potions"

That's actually pretty good news, in fact, because it means that even if the way to make full-fledged skill trees are not picked, some of these Talents could be added to the game anyway.

After some recent discussions about the changes in the EE, I've been thinking about some other things for skill group balance. Specifically, each skill group in D:OS 1 has a governing attribute, a thing which determines the power and chances to succeed for skills in that group.

STR - Man-At-Arms

DEX - Scoundrel
DEX - Expert Marksman

INT - Aerothurge
INT - Geomancer
INT - Hydrosophist
INT - Pyrokinetic
INT - Witchcraft

That's 1 STR schools, 2 DEX Schools, and a whopping 5 INT schools. Seeing that, it really makes me think: Do we really need any more INT-based schools? What are the main proposals, and their most likely governing attributes?

• Polymorpher
  I think that the G.A. which makes the most sense here is actually Constitution (CON). This affects your body of course, so a high CON means more control. The proposals for Polymorph seem to indicate a combat focus, so CON makes more sense than INT, and would also allow for a bunch of other classes to make use of this playstyle.
• Trap Master
  I think that the G.A. which makes the most sense here is DEX, both for assembling and planting the traps.
• Bard
  None of the existing Attributes seem to fit for a Bard. The only one which seems to make sense is to promote Charisma from Ability to Attribute. EDIT: I suppose the second-best fit would be DEX because of playing instruments and the general "rogueish" nature of Bards.
• Unarmed Combatant
  STR is the clear best governing attribute. However, by concept, this class doesn't have good synergies with the existing warrior types.
• Summoning Master
  INT is the clear best governing attribute.
• Juggernaut
  STR is the clear best governing attribute.
• Guardian
  STR is the clear best governing attribute.
• Alchemist
  I can't think of anything which fits perfectly, so I guess INT is the best fit here. Any Talents which have to do with grenades should become based on this tree (if it were to win of course) instead of any of the others.

So that brings the list up to:

STR - Man-At-Arms
*STR - Unarmed Combatant
*STR - Juggernaut
*STR - Guardian

DEX - Scoundrel
DEX - Expert Marksman
*DEX - Trap Master
*DEX - Bard(?)

INT - Aerothurge
INT - Geomancer
INT - Hydrosophist
INT - Pyrokinetic
INT - Witchcraft
*INT - Summoning Master
*INT - Alchemist

*CON - Polymorpher

*CHR - Bard(?)

I think that the STR-based trees could use a little more love, so I'll campaign for those for D:OS 2.

Frankly I think Polymorpher will be intelligence.

Mind you a very close ranged intelligence spellcaster.

I wouldn't mind if it used strength instead... constitution is too good of an attribute to run off of it.

My vote is that Polymorph uses Strength.

I'm a little confused, do we know when the vote for the 'Pick-a-skill-tree' begins? (Or anything about it?)

Other than that I'd probably vote Polymorpher and Summoning Master with Unarmed Combat and Trap Master being my 'second' choice so to speak.

I quite like the idea of Polymorph being based on your constitution, at least partially. I don't think it's "too good of an attribute," but it is useful to everyone to some degree. I agree with Stabbey that there are too many int trees compared to dex and strength stuff.

Bard could maybe be based off of dexterity if playing instruments is involved, maybe perception as a sort of version of charisma (reading people, knowing what to say), or could depend on your investment in charisma even as another ability. Would need some powerful skills to require two ability trees to get full effect, though.

I kind of like merging trap master with lockpicking for a more general "devices" skill, unless they make lockpicking way more useful in D:OS 2.

Yeah, I guess DEX could also work for Bards if Larian doesn't want to promote Charisma. I do not agree with the idea of requiring two ability trees or two attributes, that sounds like a nightmare to balance.

It is one of the most important attributes in the game for everyone.

Making a skillset that improved via constitution means that you don't have to spread your attributes pretty much at all (Doubly so now that your AP aren't tied to attributes). You will get a bountiful overflow of HP that will turn you into an unstoppable monster AND you will be doing tons of damage and CC in return.

As well because constitution is absolutely important it means that Polymorph becomes THE crossclass to get regardless of your build and overshadows all others.

Unless Polymorph gives you sizable penalties to offset the huge constitution bonanza... It really REALLY shouldn't be used.

In my opinion the polymorpher should *not* be a "spellcaster", there are already too many of those lines.
What it should be is a complimentary skil line. If you *only* go with Polymorpher, you have yourself a controll character. If you pair it with a warrior, essentialy what you get is a chaos warrior from warhammer, if you mix it with a wizard, you get yourself something ackin to the Simic from MTG if that makes sense to people.

The polymorpher should not be another caster, his playstyle should be determined by what you choose to mix his abilities with, as they are highly versatile.

A warrior might use it to boost his stregth, a wizard might use it to warp his enemies, a sneaky type of guy might even use it to create distractions.